Got woken up at 5am by Maryanne, our tour guide, and cooked porridge over the still burning fire, I've never been so grateful of a hot bowl of porridge! Made our way to Yurulu national park and went on a 8km hike through the desert domes of Kata Tjuta, really impressive but a long hike through rough terrain. Kate Tjuta is so sacred in Aboriginal culture that they refuse to release anything about its significance to the white man. Had a well needed and deserved lunch and headed off for Ayers Rock itself. The sheer size of the rock 348 m high above ground and some 7 km deep below the surface, is amazing and it really is a deep shade of red. After a short informative walk we watched the sun go down on the rock and watched it change many different shades of red, really impressive! we're staying at the national park camping ground tonight and camping out in swags again. We go back to the rock in the morning and we have an option of climbing either up the rock (a VERY sheer climb) of walk the 10km base around it. The aboriginals ask you not to climb the rock out of respect for their beliefs, even though we dont know what many of these beliefs are, so I'm going to have a think about what I'll do tomorrow as I'd love to climb it but at the same time I would like to reslect their wishes..